As the owner of Advertising.com,, concerned that there would be confusion over the two businesses.
Both Advertise.com and Advertising.com help advertisers run online campaigns and publishers to monetize their ad inventory.
AOL argued that the name Advertising.com was descriptive rather than generic, and was therefore protectable under trademark law. Last year, a district court agreed with AOL, but Advertise.com challenged the ruling.
Now a panel of judges at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that both 'advertising' and '.com' are generic terms, meaning that AOL does not have exclusive rights to the mark. It decided that many businesses could respond to the question: "What are you?" with the answer: "An advertising dot com".
Circuit Judge Betty Fletcher said in the ruling: "A mark is not descriptive merely because it conveys some minimal information about a product or service. If all it 'describes' is the common name of the product or service, it is not protectable as a trademark."
Advertise.com has not challenged AOL's right to protect the design and style of the Advertising.com logo, which was upheld in the initial district court ruling.
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